


basvaarad

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, Qunari
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel Hawke became a casual yet earnest student of the Qun shortly before leaving Lothering, not expecting it to become part of the most important decisions he'd ever make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Daniel Hawke was tall (thanks to Malcolm) and broad (thanks to Leandra), but he didn’t talk much. He listened to people argue with the passivity of an entirely neutral party, sharp eyes flicking from one impassioned face to another, and only when they both wheeled on him and demanded to know what he thought would he speak, and his answer was always infuriating to everyone involved.

That could have been why Anders, Varric, and Bethany were staring at him now as if he’d just sucked his teeth, planted his feet, and burst out in a barrage of foreign words in front of a horned giant that likely wanted to kill him.

It likely didn’t help that that was _exactly_ what he’d just done.

Arvaarad drew up in undisguised surprise, his hooded brow furrowing. “You know the Qun. You… are _not_ bas?”

Daniel, who figured he’d said enough, simply stared defiantly, arms folded across his armoured chest. Behind him he felt his companions shift and murmur; at his side, Saarebas-called-Ketojan simply knelt, unbound by Arvaarad but stone-still and inscrutable.

"Then why do you fight? Saarebas belongs with Arvaarad, as is his place. It is known."

It was known. Arvaarad was a saarebas’s personal templar, the one who protected them from the world and the world from them, the one who leashes the dangerous and guides them in the way that they should go.  
But Saarebas-called-Ketojan had followed _him_ , had flared to white-hot life to protect _him,_ had bowed his head when Daniel clarified that Ketojan intended to fight alongside him and his companions, as opposed to fighting against them.

"What say you?" Daniel asked him quietly, as Arvaarad folded his arms and lifted his chin and growled something to his fellow soldiers, who tightened their ranks behind him. "Ebost Arvaarad? Ashkost kata? … Ashkost say Basvaarad?"

Saarebas-called-Ketojan answered without hesitation or tremor, and Daniel raised his eyes to Arvaarad and drew his sword.

==

"You can’t walk around with a _Qunari mage,_ Daniel! Are you _insane?”_ Varric held up his hands in disbelief, wide hazel eyes flicking from Daniel’s stubborn face to Ketojan’s partially-veiled one.

"I have no choice. I have been given his lead." The slim golden rod felt heavy and cold in Daniel’s hand, but he held onto it, his other hand grasping his wrist in front of him.

"You take one step into Kirkwall—"

"We _are_ in Kirkwall.”

The dwarf spluttered, shoving his hands into his hair. “Underground, Daniel, we’re underground! And luckily, this isn’t one of the passages crawling with templars! Besides, what if one of the other Qunari sees you with him? What happens when you have to report to the Arishok?”

"I hold Saarebas’s lead. We cannot be separated without killing us, and the Qun does not kill people unnecessarily."

Varric cursed and turned away, pacing.  
"But you _can’t_ walk around with a Qunari mage, brother, he has a point,” Bethany whispered, her voice placating, but Daniel wouldn’t be placated.

"If Arvaarad can, so can I."

"The Arvaarad is a Qunari. Big difference."

Daniel bowed his head. “Then I will convert.”

"No!" Varric shouted, wheeling on him again. "We lose you to the Qunari, the expedition’s back to where it started, the Amell estate remains lost to your family, and all for, what, one ox-headed mage?"

"Varric…" Anders warned, and the dwarf exhaled gustily before returning to his pacing.

"I will go to Arishok," Daniel declared, looking up at Ketojan as if for approval. "I will tell him what has happened. Then we shall see."

==

There was still the matter of Petrice, who had ensnared them, and Daniel confronted her alone, while Anders and Bethany remained underground with Ketojan. Varric claimed to need a hundred drinks to understand what just happened, and left for the tavern.

"I should have killed her," Daniel stated when he rejoined his companions. The gleaming sovereigns Sister Petrice had disgustedly given him jangled unpleasantly in his coinpurse, deepening his scowl and making his hands twitch. "Her and her templar both."

"It's a good thing you didn't," Bethany responded, brushing grime off her trousers as she stood. "We're going to have enough trouble as it is."

Anders and Bethany had both been seated when Daniel had returned, but Ketojan stood like one of the Gallows' statues, stock-still and blank-eyed -- from what Daniel could see of his eyes, anyway, which wasn't much.  
"Are you hungry?" he asked the Qunari, who growled something unintelligible before it seemed to realise it wasn't bound anymore.

"I eat when Arvaarad eats," he answered, slowly, as if he had never thought about it before now.

Anders sucked his teeth; Daniel could almost hear his jaw grind in agitation.

"Then we shall eat," Daniel countered reasonably, and Anders threw his hands up in the air and started to pace.

"You're just going to... accept this. You freed a mage from his oppressors, and now you're going to... become just like them?" A livid flush bloomed over the mage's cheeks and nose, his skin already beginning to crackle and his eyes already beginning to spit blue sparks.

"You do not understand--"

"I think I do, as a matter of fact!" Justice's voice underscored the words with a furious energy that made the hairs on Daniel's body stand up straight, and Daniel found that he had no desire to get into this with Anders, not now, not ever.

"Anders, you _don't_ understand," Bethany spoke up, sweet-tempered voice edged with hard-won granite, and Anders snarled but did not interrupt. "If my brother turns him loose now, what will he do? He obviously knows nothing but service and defence. He will die within minutes of stepping out of this sewer, and what good will freedom do him then?"

"We are going home now," Daniel spoke up, quickly, to prevent from hearing Anders' rebuttal.

==

The short walk through Lowtown to get back to his uncle's hovel was surprisingly uneventful. A few children pointed and shouted, a few drunken men tried to heckle Ketojan, but they ran into no templars and no other Qunari. Daniel's heart finally stopped hammering when they were safely inside, but he'd forgotten about Gamlen.

"What is that?" the man asked immediately, pulling a face and giving Ketojan a pointed once-over.

"This is Ketojan." Focus snapping back to the Qunari again, he looked up, searchingly. "Or, not. Do you mind being called Ketojan? Should I address you as Saarebas, instead? I am not sure I've ever encountered anything like 'Ketojan' in any Qunari texts, it may not even--"

"Get it out of here. It's bad enough I've got to deal with you three and all those lowlife friends you keep making. I'm not a charity, and I won't have any of those ox-fucking ogres in my house."

"Uncle Gamlen!" Bethany exclaimed, her ears flushing red at his vulgarity. She huffed and retreated into the other room, and Daniel, still focused on Ketojan, murmured, "I am dreadfully sorry about my uncle."

"You got wool in your ears, boy? Get it _out,_ I said!" and so Daniel gently took Ketojan by the arm and led him back outside, tears springing at his otherwise-placid eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Night fell hard and cold, with hardly a warning; only a hint of red sky beyond the foundry smoke, and then blackness, and under cover of this blackness Daniel and Ketojan passed quietly through Lowtown and into the district below.

Varric's words came back to him, harsh and tinged with incredulity -- a voice more suited to Bartrand than to the genial and silver-tongued younger brother -- and Daniel thought of Ketojan flaring white in the under-dark, thought of the chilly Arvaarad, thought of a hornless giant languishing in a cell back in Lothering-that-was...  
'For what?' Varric wanted to know, and Daniel, leading this hulking foreigner into Darktown, found he had no answer.

Ketojan trusted him. Called him 'basvaarad'. Followed him without question.  
Anders argued, Merrill questioned, Varric suggested, and Bethany coaxed. Ketojan simply followed.

He supposed he ought to have had a more noble cause than that, but he was human and that was all he had for now.

"Hawke? Fancy running into you down here at this time of..." Tomwise trailed off when he looked up, his eyes falling not upon Daniel, but upon the Qunari behind him. "... Night.   
You in some kind of trouble?"

"No," Daniel answered, not entirely dishonestly. "But when I was working for Athenril, you said there was a place..."

The elf arched his eyebrows, sighed, looked away. Looked at Ketojan again, sideways. "I can't have you harbouring Qunari in my hideout, Daniel. How did you even...?"

"Gamlen wouldn't let him stay with us." Frustration still roiled in his chest; he couldn't bring himself to call the man 'uncle'. "He won't go off by himself, and I won't let him besides--"

"Well, of course not. Look at him."

 _"But_ I have made a choice, and my choice is to accompany and protect him, and not too long ago you said anything I needed..."

"I was talking about _poison!"_ the elf retorted, waving a hand at his stock.

"Tomwise, please, at least for the night. You're the only help I've got."

He frowned, muttered an oath, stabbed his finger into Daniel's chest and holding his gaze. "No one else but you two. No fires. No noise. And now, you owe _me."_

==

Daniel shelled out for day-old bread and salt pork, a couple of carrots, and two apples. They ate in silence after Tomwise led them to shelter and then departed, closing the trapdoor behind him. A heavy, muffled _thump_ signalled the rug being laid back in place, hiding the entrance.

The pork was especially salty, and Daniel regretted not being able to make a lean stew out of it and the carrots instead, but Ketojan offered no complaint, and Daniel thought that perhaps he'd do well not to complain, either.

"Saarebas should have remained with Arvaarad," the Qunari spoke, and his voice seemed thunderous in the close quarters.

Daniel flinched. "I am doing the best I can, Ketojan. I'm sorry. Kirkwallers aren't exactly fond of you all."

"Saarebas has interrupted the flow of your existence. You are not ready to be basvaarad, and yet the path was clear. Why else would saarebas' fate have been entrusted to one who is kabethari, but yet versed in the Qun? Why else did Arvaarad not kill us immediately?"

It was the most Ketojan had said since he'd regained the power of speech. His ponderous voice grew thinner towards the end, weaker, as if pushed too far too soon. Daniel handed him the waterskin.

"My sister is a mage. I learnt templar skills -- basvaarad skills -- to protect her, to be what our father wished of me.  
She talks of going to the Circle now, of wanting to be around others like her and learn what they have to offer, stuff like that.  
She's going to leave the first chance she gets, I just know it. And who will I protect then?"

Ketojan was silent. Hearing a faint squeaking, Daniel shredded a bit of pork and tossed it towards one of the corners. The sound of scurrying rodent feet was all he heard next, until Ketojan spoke again.

"If Arishok deems you worthy, then it is you who will have to leave her."

"I know. I am afraid of that. But I made a choice, and I'm sticking by it."

"Then the Qun will provide."

==

The stone under Daniel's feet was hot enough to feel through his soles. It was still just shy of midday, and the docks were teeming with people -- merchants, seamen, labourers. No one took notice of the swarthy man in boiled leather or the giant beside him, a giant now clad in only the heavy kilt since Daniel had coaxed him into taking off the enormous collar and chains.

"Anything can be a collar," Ketojan had allowed, as the chains clanked noisily to the floor, "a name, for instance," and Daniel still couldn't get those words out of his head.

Four stony Qunari guarded the entrance to the compound, and Daniel looked them each in the eye but could find no difference between them.  
"Shanedan. I must see the Arishok. It is of great importance."

The guards regarded him unblinkingly, then shifted their eyes to Ketojan.  
A moment later, they pulled open the gates.

==

Bethany had never been to the Qunari compound, nor did she ever have a desire to go, but Daniel hadn't come back to Gamlen's and she remembered his determination to present himself and Ketojan to the Arishok.

There was a chance she'd not see Daniel again, not for a long time, if ever.  
Quickly she dressed, wishing fervently that she could have her staff with her, but it was too risky. She would have to rely on her hands, and the few poison vials she kept secreted in her long sleeveless coat, if it came to that at all.

Thankful that their mother was at the Keep again and therefore unable to ask questions, Bethany left Gamlen's and hurried towards the docks.

Daniel was difficult, and guarded, and constantly in search of his purpose, and when he got an idea into his head he refused to let it go. Their mother had found it a little disturbing when he'd brought back the worn book from the Qunari in the cage, but she'd been happy that he was learning about foreign cultures. "It's probably Malcolm's blood, you know," she explained to no one in particular, with a sad smile. "Those elven brains, quick as lightning, always looking to learn something new."

But Bethany was afraid. He may have feared losing her to the Circle, but she'd feared losing him to the Qun first.

She only had to ask two people for directions before she was led to the Qunari compound's front gates, and the giants that guarded it gave her a moment's pause. Still, she approached them with as much bravado as she could affect, shoulders back, jaw set, and Maker help her, she _refused_ to fidget.

"My brother, Daniel. Hawke. He may have come here with a... another one like you."

"What of him?"

 _Did they all speak like an approaching storm?_ "Well, is he here? Can I..." She tried to look between the guards, around them, into the compound, but they easily blocked her view.

"His business here is his alone."

"For the love of Andraste, he's my _brother!_ I want to know what's going on in there!"

"Bethany?"

Her words caught in her throat at the sound of his voice, and she pushed at the nearest Qunari to get him to move. Daniel was standing on the other side of the gates, that cursed Qunari mage still with him.

"Oh, good, you're all right. Come on, let's go."

"I'm not going anywhere, Bethany."

A chill crept up Bethany's spine, settling into her nervous system, slipping into her blood. "What are you talking about? It's all over, isn't it? Ketojan's back with his people, now we can..."

"If I leave him, he will die. And I will, as well."

The chill became ice, crackling and popping as it flowed down her arms. "No."

"Bethany..."

 _"No!"_ And the guards leapt into action.


	3. Chapter 3

Daniel scanned the area behind the gate, what he could see between the heavy wooden slats, but all he saw was a riot of red-painted flesh. His heart hammered behind his ribcage, hands clenching, and he wished he'd brought a weapon with him, anything, even though the Qunari would have likely confiscated it when he arrived.

"Don't hurt her," he murmured, his breath too short for anything above a whisper, but of course no one heard.

As it turned out, Bethany had swallowed the icy magic, pressed it deep into her belly and gritted her teeth until its furious force subsided, had held up her hands to show them to be free of elemental weaponry, had backed away from the slit-eyed guards and flung her arms defiantly down when she was at a safe distance, and stalked away.

The guards returned to their posts, and one of them shot Daniel a hot glance, as if to say, "You bas had better watch yourselves."

"Parshaara," Arishok ground out, still standing in front of his back-less seat, having paused to observe. "These bas toy with us, craft their deals and consider themselves clever. Take this tainted Saarebas and its imekari _basvaarad_ \--" he spat the word as if it left a sour taste on his tongue, "--and do what must be done. I will hear no more of this folly."

 _Do what must be done._ The words echoed jarringly in Daniel's ears, and mingled with the grating metallic sound of swords being drawn. Ketojan bowed his head, accepting, but Daniel backed away from the grimly advancing Qunari.

"No. We are not tainted. Ketojan--"

" _Ketojan_ is not our word," Arishok interrupted, sneering. Hands the size of dinner plates closed around Daniel's arms, holding him fast. "You think you know the Qun, because you have read a book. You are wrong."

Light blinded Daniel then, and he thought the sun had reemerged from the thick, roiling cover of clouds. When a big painted body flew past him as if thrown, he realised that the sun was Ketojan, brilliant and defiant, and he was looking at Daniel, whom the two warriors had unhanded in the face of this new threat.

"Run," Ketojan commanded.

\--

Daniel wasn't the most adept of fighters, and he was about as magical as a rock, but one thing he could do was run. He dodged the guards, barreled through the gates without pausing, leapt down the stairs and ducked and weaved through the men working the docks. He followed the smell of the sea and ran, ran until stone and wood gave way to dirt and grass, until the black rocks rose craggy and formidable beside him, until the tide was the only sound he heard apart from his own ragged breathing.  
When a stitch bloomed red and livid in his side, he imagined taloned hands closing on his shoulders, and kept running.

He only stopped when he tripped over an exposed root, slamming hard into the ground, tasting soil and the metallic rush of his own blood as his teeth clamped down on his lip. He tasted something else, too, salty like the sea below him. Tears.

Surely Ketojan had been slain by now. He'd bought Daniel's life with his own. Was self-sacrifice in the Qun? Was it considered noble, like it was amongst humans? Or would the Qunari consider their work done for them, and forget the rebellious Saarebas who'd dared to do something other than meekly die by their sword?

"Asit tal-eb," he whispered between rasping breaths, to calm himself, but the rhythmic words failed to soothe him the way they had so many times before. "Maraas shokra... anaam esaam..." He spat dirt and blood at the ground he was still laying on, and wondered how everything had gotten so messy.

Aching and miserable, wanting Bethany or his mother, Daniel briefly toyed with the idea of getting up and going back to Gamlen's, but his heart was weighing him down. He dozed in the humidity, listening to the roar of the sea -- _meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit_ \-- and thinking he'll get up in a moment, just a moment, when his heart stops racing and his legs stop trembling...

"Basvaarad."

Daniel blinked his eyes open. His mouth still tasted like dirt and blood. "I'm dreaming," he mumbled. "Or hearing things." 

But when he rolled onto his back, Ketojan loomed over him, blocking out what little could be seen of the sunset. Torn was the clothing Daniel had given him, and red gleamed on his bronze flesh like the paint that covered the other Qunari, but this red was not paint.

"You're a hallucination. I'm hallucinating." Daniel shook his head stubbornly. He'd already begun the process of accepting-what-was.

"Stand, Basvaarad," Ketojan insisted. "We must find shelter. The sky will darken soon."

Willing for the moment to suspend his disbelief, Daniel pushed himself to his feet, both of which were throbbing dully but didn't object too much to supporting him again. He reached out and laid a tentative, trembling hand on Ketojan's shoulder.

"You're still alive," he breathed.

"Saarebas intended on remaining so."

"Why did you do that? They'll hunt you, you defied the Qun, I thought..."

"Saarebas has defied the Qun ever since Saarebas met the Chantry Sister," Ketojan said.  
"They will hunt you, too. They will scour Kirkwall for you."

"I cannot go home," Daniel realised, and his heart sank. _Bethany. Mother..._

"One day. Not today."

"Where do we go, Ketojan? You would know better than I..."

"The Tal-Vashoth live in these wilds. We find them."

"Aren't they dangerous? More dangerous than the Qunari?"

"Saarebas is called 'Dangerous Thing'," Ketojan pointed out. "Saarebas is beginning to understand that the Qun is not always truth."

 _Asit tal-eb,_ Daniel thought, and this time the words rang truer.


End file.
